Yeah, people like that should become people you _used_ to know in short order. Unless they're relatives, in which case they become relatives you _used_ to talk to.

Nihilism is, in some ways, the most rational response to the universe we find ourselves in. Which is also why it just doesn't make any sense to think like that. Sure we all die and every work of human beings is ultimately pointless but so what ? We're not dead _yet_ and just _look_ at the universe we're lucky enough…

True but people are also not terrible which is why taxis were ferrying people from the Manchester arena for free, hotels were putting people up when they didn't have anywhere to stay etc.

I'm sure we have our share of them online but MRAs aren't much of a thing in the UK as far as the mainstream of wackos goes (to the extent that if this is them I virtually guarantee the top search on google.co.uk straight afterwards would be "what's an MRA") so i'd be surprised if this was them though you never know…

The idea of an "ancestor simulation" is roughly that if you accept that eventually civilisations reach a point where they're capable of building computers powerful enough to simulate minds (and would want to e.g. for scientific applications or perhaps as a form of immortality) _then_ at every time after that point in…

And an additional tiny wrinkle I liked but which I very much doubt is deliberate is that particle physicists at somewhere like CERN specifically would understand the value of depriving an enemy of data from repeated runs of their machine better than most (the LHC generates something like 600 million collisions a…

Yeah, Bill asks him what they're doing with the explosives and the scientist says "We're saving the world".

Totally agree except on your final 'but' since for me it's more "…and so…". 12's self-identifying as an "idiot" is him specifically denying being a monster IMO - the real monsters of human (and Who) history kill because they have some grand view of themselves or the universe and their place in it but idiots ? Well,…

This'll maybe sound a bit parochial but it hadn't occurred to me that BBC America would cut content from Doctor Who episodes (i'm in the UK).

In fact there's literally a book of contributions from various writers, celebrities etc. recounting their early memories of 'Doctor Who' called 'Behind the Sofa':

For that reason i'm actually starting to wonder if the third one is going to feature some time-travel shenanigans. Or more likely, it just won't make sense and Ridley Scott will be fine with that.

You can indeed write in a spore or pathogen that gets through a suit. So why not do that ? It's got the added advantage of not making all the characters your audience is meant to be rooting for look like total idiots ;).

Yeah I don't remember the 'Alien' crew going on about it as something momentous (everything else aside, if that was humanity's very first alien contact you'd think the blue collar crew of the Nostromo would be excited about getting rich from it).

Which is itself the rhinoceri of the ocean !

True, they knew there was breathable air (you can tell that from orbit or even further off by examining the atmosphere's spectrum) and with some very basic assumptions you can work out the gravity too. IIRC the guy in 'Prometheus' knew there was breathable air too right (haven't seen it since it came out so I might be…

Hah, well i've got basically zero screenwriting experience so i'd struggle with the dialogue etc. But I do have an ounce (maybe more ;) of common sense and have travelled a bit so i'd very likely write my deep space explorer colonists as taking at least the same precautions about local flora/fauna and water purity…

Yeah, they're looking to permanently inhabit this planet and yet can't wait a couple of days to see if the weather calms down (even that ignores the fact that in reality they'd probably spend weeks in orbit surveying the surface before even launching a lander). And in this future we can build perfectly lifelike…

Kind of, yeah. Either the Xenos in the prequels are totally separate from the Xeno we see in 'Alien' (which seems unlikely) or David has a big hand in forming them into the Xenomorphs as we know them (he doesn't create them exactly so it might still be consistent with what we see in 'Prometheus' - been a while since I…

Similarly to yourself, I can't understand any reviews or discussions - including those above - which don't at least mention the deep stupidity of them landing and wandering out into an alien world without any sort of suit, respirator etc. That's terrible screenwriting to me, it immediately sets the characters up as…

The first scene with the flute was perhaps the only moment of genuine tension in the film for me. Walter is one of the few sympathetic characters (principally because he's not a complete idiot) and we know David is cuckoo for cocoa puffs - is he going to stab him in the mouth with it ? I was so sure it was coming I…